ANORA (2024)

Anora is a lot of things. Or, what do you want it to be, so to speak. It’s a rags to riches story, as in one minute one is turning tricks, honestly enough, and is rewarded with a lottery win and all of the presumed consumptions that come with it; luxury vacations and shopping sprees with a party boy on your arm. It’s a dare to dream story. As in one knows, in the gut, that Pretty Woman (1990) and Cinderella are lovely, but only for the naive, and though pessimistic, Les Misérables is what ultimately rings truer if one has any wits about them. And Anora has wits. And that’s what makes this a good story. Experience has shown her what she can do, what works, what keeps whomever she needs to keep paying her, to keep paying her. She’s not stupid. And she’s stupid. Anora is a woman’s story. Not the woman she makes up, but the one who is forced to come out when the fantasy is, by all means, torn down.

WATCH OR NOT: WATCH

Additional musings: Not that any of it really matters, but Mikey Madison deserved the win the Oscar for Best Actress. Though we would have liked to have also seen Amy Adams as a contender for Nightbitch (2024).